An electronic assembly typically includes a printed circuit board. The printed circuit board is populated with the various components associated with the assembly. The printed circuit board includes a relatively large number of signal carrying lines in the form of metallic traces which electrically couple two or more portions of circuit board to one another. Circuit boards may take the form of single-sided boards, double-sided boards, or multilayered boards which have a number of inner layers.
The layout and design of printed circuit boards can be a relatively complex task. Indeed, designers are often faced with problems such as insufficient board “real estate,” conflicts with design standards, product cost constraints, etcetera. For example, during the layout and design of a circuit board, the designer may run out of room for the parts to be mounted on the topside board, yet the designer does not have all of the parts placed on the topside of the board. Moreover, the current design guidelines under which the designer is operating may state that, for example, surface mounted chips are not to be placed on the bottom side of the board. Hence, the designer is faced with the choice of either (1) putting surface mounted chips on the bottom side thereby violating the design guidelines in addition to increasing the cost of the assembly, (2) increasing the size of the board thereby increasing its cost, or (3) increasing the “technology level” of the board with more layers, finer lines, smaller pitch components, etcetera thereby also increasing the cost of the assembly.
In light of the fact that each of the above-identified options increases the cost of the assembly, the designer must determine which of the options will yield the most cost effective solution to the problem. In other words, the designer is challenged with finding the solution to his or her problem that increases the cost of the assembly by the least amount. In reality, of course, there is no universal solution to such a problem. Each situation is generally unique. In practice, the typical way to explore the designer's options is to have a circuit board vendor and an assembler quote each different option and then compare them. Unfortunately, getting these vendors to allow access to quoting resources with no prospect for an order is often difficult. There is no way the designer can do this for herself or himself.
Hence, the designer often takes her or his “best guess” at a solution to the design dilemma. The design is then presented to a supply base of vendors to determine the cost of the product based on the design. Often the “real” cost of the product based on the design exceeds the marketing expectations resulting in costly redesign efforts to reduce the cost.